Why the Trump Campaign Is Praying Joe Biden Doesn’t Drop Out

Introduction hi everyone Tim Alberta is the staff writer for the Atlantic and the author of the recent book The Kingdom the power and the glory American evangelicalism in the age of extremism he's done some remarkable reporting for his newest piece in the Atlantic which gives unprecedented insight into the strategy informing former president Trump's 2024 campaign Tim I know you spent about six months talking to the people behind the campaign in particular the co- managers Susie ws and Chris levita who are these people yeah I think uh Katie the most Who are these people striking thing to to realize is that unlike the previous two Trump campaigns in 2016 which really wasn't a campaign at all it was more like an elaborate reality TV show stunt that had no political professionals really involved meaningfully and then 2020 which did have some some serious sophisticated people involved but they spent way too much money and they were focused on all the wrong things and the campaign wound up being sort of a disaster this time around the campaign is really professionalized and is really efficient and is run by two of the sharpest shrewdest most Cutthroat operators in all of politics Susie ws and Chris lasv who have on their own individually uh a pretty long established record of winning a lot of races and and together they have really taken what has been a sloppy political operation at Best in the past and turned it into something that's pretty fearsome tell us about their political credentials and experience sure so Susie WS comes from Florida and it's interesting uh the late Political credentials Tim russer of course used to always say Florida Florida Florida and you may yeah of course and you may have some people this time around in 2024 who are wondering why isn't anyone talking about Florida anymore the answer is Susie WS uh Susie WS basically had engineered a strategy to turn out and Target nonwhite voters in Florida in a way that the Republican Party had been unable to do anywhere else and the result of it has been so successful that Democrats this time around have essentially conceded the State of Florida there are no resources there they're not competing for Florida anymore which is something that no one would have believed 10 or 15 years ago but here we are I think Susie WS is the strategist most directly responsible for that Chris Lev is a really interesting guy former Marine who sort of stumbled his way accidentally into politics he is most famous uh Katie for taking down John kery in 2004 with the Swift boat Veterans for truth advertisements which you know they really in the sort of class classic um Art of War sort of way took the opponent's greatest strength which for John KY was his distinguished service in the Vietnam War and turned it into a really debilitating weakness and so Chris levita his specialty is advertising is really figuring out how to Target voters with a message uh through the airwaves that will sort of penetrate their psyche and and and try to sort of almost work a Jedi mind trick to get them thinking differently about an issue or about an individual and these two have very different skill sets very different backgrounds they're very different people but they have sort of formed This Very Odd Couple unlikely Alliance and it is so far seeming to work quite well and of course we know that in Trump World nobody lasts long any given day could be their last the place is you know Trump's political orbit is sort of a graveyard for political Consultants but from everything I gathered and spending six months or so around the operation these two have really figured out the right buttons to push and how to sort of keep themselves in Trump's good graces while also sort of edging him out of his own comfort zone and getting him to do things that he wasn't formerly you know in favor of doing before we talk about the buttons they're pushing and the strategy they're employing I'm curious why you believe they gave you so much access and were so willing to talk to you and really honestly put their cards out on the table yeah I I think uh the simplest Why did the Trump campaign give you so much access answer to that and you'll appreciate it Katie more than most in journalism when you are able to impress upon people that you are already getting to the story without them then then often times they will realize well maybe I should talk to this person because I don't want him sneaking around the back door I'd rather open the front door and invite them in and try to grab some piece of the narrative try to control things as best I can and so whether that's Chris lick at CNN or whether it's Chris LV with the Trump campaign the same general principle at least in my experience applies so I've been I've been covering Republican politics pretty intensively for the last decade or so I know Chris I don't know Susie quite as well but they know me and they know my source Network and so I was coming to Chris and telling him some of the things I already knew I think at that point they probably felt as though they didn't have a choice that it was in their best interest just to bring me in I'm curious how did they try to shape the narrative Tim when you were reporting on the story did they try to direct you one way or another and it was it hard to resist their in treaties yeah it's a good question I I What did the Trump campaign try to tell you would point to a couple of different things I think um one thing thing that they were really interested in in trying to sell me on was the idea that they had sort of reinvented the wheel as far as their ground game in the state of Iowa um they they walked me through a lot of statistics and and tried to explain the the mechanics of what they did there and and there's certainly I think some truth some legitimacy to uh the idea that they approach things differently and that it may have paid off for them to some degree um but I I think that they were very much hop to have me invest in this idea that they had revolutionized caucus politics in Iowa by identifying all of these low propensity voters and then enlisting those low propensity voters as volunteers when in fact Donald Trump was way ahead in the polls in Iowa from the moment he launched his campaign his allies spent more money on TV advertisements than his opponents combined uh uh as of the middle of 2023 so he had all of these other huge advantages so that's one ex example of where I think they were trying to demonstrate how they had kind of transformed the Trump political operation I think another thing is more recent Katie and I would point to this they have tried to tell me and I think tell others but they're on the record talking with me about it in my piece that it doesn't matter if Joe Biden isn't really the Democratic nominee because who whoever replaces him whether it's kamla Harris or someone else that they would inherit the same baggage that and that they would attack that candidate the same way that they would attack Joe Biden but that's just not true I know from having spent a considerable amount of time really looking under the hood of this campaign that Chris and suie have effectively built this very specific campaign to run against a very specific opponent in Joe Biden and and were he to be replaced suddenly it would almost send them back to the drawing board everything from their media buys to their micr targeting strategies their messaging everything that they've done as a campaign would have to change and and of course they don't want that to happen so I think in a number of different ways they did try to grab control of the narrative and of course as a reporter that's you know your job is to be on the lookout and hopefully be vigilant enough to to not let that happen and to that point Tim the subheading of your article is something like they're doing everything or they're almost praying that Biden doesn't drop out of the race um how are they feeling about this time in American politics where we're really facing a will he or won't he be the Democratic nominee anxiety Katie is I guess the The anxiety in the Trump orbit best word I could use to describe it there is a lot of anxiety in the Trump orbit right now because let's face it uh going into the debate there was I think a pretty a pretty widespread recognition in the political class the folks who really look at the numbers who understand what it looks like on the ground um I live in Michigan I'm I'm constantly in touch with elected officials here and in Wisconsin Pennsylvania I really know this part of the country very well I think it was pretty apparent going into the debate that Biden was in deep trouble and that he was going to have a very hard time winning and then the debate of course was so devastating that coming out of it the Trump people felt like they were now really moving into Landslide territory where they could win this election very very comfortably and so of course now that there's this chance however remote that Biden could be replaced I think it it has stirred a great deal of anxiety in his campaign and from what I understand even among Trump himself because again he feels like he is so uniquely situated to attack Biden's weaknesses here the you know they have drawn up this entire campaign as I say at the top of the story as a contrast in visuals and the visual this is classic Chris LV what is the visual that voters take away it's strength versus weakness and for whatever Trump's other liabilities and Lord knows he has a lot of them he comes across as forceful as as Macho as strong in a way that Biden just doesn't and so of course if that is in fact kind of the Strategic Lynch pin to the campaign they're terrified of losing it and they must have thought the debate performance was Mana from heaven in terms of feeding into this narrative and this sort of visual contrast talk to us a little more about that Tim how they are actually trying to present these two very different individuals and how they're trying to convey President Biden versus Donald Trump because they're being very smart in the ways they're doing it yeah Katie it's interesting so the Trump campaign has this 24hour sday a The 24hour war room week war room set up with a bunch of young staffers who I I didn't even have the time and the piece to get into this for example you should do a follow-up piece on them I might have to these guys occupy this dark little room inside of trump headquarters with like 10 TVs going at once and all these guys are doing all day long is looking for like five to 10 to 15 second clips that they can grab and then work into internet sort of viral memes to then blast out on social media and then get Amplified by all these influencers who are sort of Affiliated or or allied with the Trump campaign orican party or Fox News right it's and it's and it's it's incredibly effective I mean and you have to understand that even a day like when Joe Biden in the span of a few hours calls zalinski President Putin and then says vice president Trump when he's talking about kamla Harris like that is more Mana from Heaven these are these are episodes that are immediately sort of captured weaponized and then monetized by the Trump campaign and the the important thing I think I would point out about all of this is that the Biden campaign to date Katie has already spent well over hundred million dollar in paid advertising across the Battleground States the Trump campaign has barely spent a nickel and they are sitting on a massive reserve of money and Chris L of is one of the best ad makers in the business he is going to go up in the next 6 weeks or so with some devastating TV commercials and they are going to be targeting exactly the people who they think are most affected by seeing Joe Biden sort of stammering and stuttering and looking lost the way that he has and that is Suburban women who are afraid about the border and about National Security and terrorism and everything else and and young black and Latino men who that natural machis sort of appeals to uh this is really a sort of two-pronged strategy the way that the Trump people are thinking about it and it does in so many cases come back to this one word that they're wrapping around Biden every day weakness what else are these two political Pros doing to give Donald Trump an edge other than kind of describing this as a stre strength versus weakness campaign so you have some of the big picture strategic stuff that I've been talking about I think what's really Absentee voting interesting is some of the smaller tactical Maneuvers that we're seeing from the campaign for example and this one you wouldn't really call small it's actually a really big deal you know four years ago during the pandemic talk about consumer behaviors changing you had you know millions and millions of people who didn't feel comfortable going into a a polling place and they voted by mail and in that campaign Donald Trump basically forbade his voters from using the absentee option that was available to them in a lot of these critical swing States and that was considered a big mistake right Tim a a huge I mean listen Katie if you look at the numbers the the exit polling if you are looking at the raw vote totals in some of these states and the the microscopic margins of victory for Joe Biden you have to conclude that had Donald Trump actually taken advantage of male voting the way that the Biden campaign had then Trump very likely would have won in 2020 so this was a big deal and if you fast forward now four years not only have Chris Lita and Susie WS gotten Donald Trump to buy in to male voting but their campaign has now mobilized around it and built out a pretty sophisticated infrastructure that makes absentee voting very customizable for anyone who interfaces with the campaign online or in person so they've they've again what they've done is not just sort of move Trump as a candidate to a different place rhetorically but they've actually sort of operationalized it and built out some of their campaign using using a lot of money a lot of manpower to try to then harness some of the new sort of big picture strategic approaches and try to make them more tactically effective on the ground he has been surprisingly disciplined over the last couple of weeks following the debate do you think they're behind that encouraging him to kind of lay low for at least for Donald Trump he's laying low yeah I do think so um you know there Why would they commit murder there's a uh there's a quote that one of his folks gave me that I didn't include in the story because I thought it was a little bit gratuitous but effectively said why would we commit murder when our opponent is committing suicide and I think that's a pretty good window into how they're thinking about all of this right now they see the pressure the pressure mounting on Congressional Democrats every day uh to disavow Biden to ask him to drop out of the race they see the white house uh beginning to leak against their own president that I mean they're watching sort of an implosion of the democratic party in real time so why would they possibly want to get in the way of that let me ask you how they feel about their work because in the pece You observe kind of a complicated uh Dynamic of the people who are are empowering and enabling Donald Trump you right I also detected a certain conflict the sort of disqui that accompanies a betting a man who is both a convicted felon claiming that the state is persecuting him and an aspiring strong man pledging to use the State against his own enemies people close to Trump spoke regularly of his victimhood but also his own calls for Retribution they expressed solidarity with their boss while also questioning and private moments what working for him what electing him might portend so do they feel guilty or any sense of shame that they are propping up someone who according to many people and not just Democrats might present an existential threat to democracy Katie it's really fascinating at a psychological level to have these How to talk to Trump employees conversations with Trump's employees and you have to do it in in kind of a um you have to do it in in a bit of a I would say not even a diplomatic way sort of a a Savvy way um you have to almost get invite them to think that the conversation is their idea and that you're just sort of spitballing here at a human level you know everybody's got problems with their boss right you know and and you kind of talk about it that way um and when you get into those conversations as I have over a long period of time with with Trump's not only just the people on this campaign but his previous campaigns people in his White House in his West Wing but particularly in this moment given what he has pledged to do if he is reelected yes in their private moments some of these people are anywhere from you know from nervous to downright apprehensive uh even even I might argue terrified in some cases that he might actually follow through on some of what he's talking about and which of course would ask you know you anyone would ask the followup okay then why are they working for him right I think that there is this sort of I guess compartmentalizing that so many people do when they sort of believe that they are part of a zero sum equation that it's either us or them and sure my side has its warts but look at what those people are doing over there uh if you if you believe that this is part of a sort of clash between good and evil then you know you're less interested in whether your side is good you're really more focused on the other side being evil I think the Trump folks are interesting in in the sense that when they talk about him and I really see this now more in this campaign than in either of the other two Katie they're very cleare eyed about who he is um I I can remember in 16 and in 20 a lot of conversations around oh you don't know the guy that I know you don't see him in his private moments there's not much of that anymore I mean I've even talked with people who have been around for multiple campaigns and who have worked for him for years they've sort of given that up they don't they don't really try to spin that stuff anymore they basically just say h the guy is who he is but you got to realize that most of it's just Bluster most of it's just talk he'll never follow through on it and I do think that Democrats are ruining the country so yeah I'm going to help him get elected and then I'm going to pray that he doesn't do any of this crazy stuff that he says he might do there's a remarkable moment when James Blair the campaign and RNC political director says to you quote if we lose I think there's a pretty good chance they're going to throw us in jail what did he mean by that exactly you know we talked about it and I talked about it with some other folks on the Trump campaign too this is this is a uh a sentiment that's not insignificant in Trump World because they do believe I think I think there's two things that go into it Katie number one they recognize that they are sort of conspiring with a convicted felon here right I mean to to to to maybe to dramatize the language a little bit but they recognize that their boss is a convicted felon that he's facing these other criminal trials as well and that he's had his properties raided that he is sort of uh you know in the bullseye of the Department of Justice and they realize iiz that working for him working for what some of his former employees have described as a criminal Enterprise could have very real repercussions just ask Paul manior uh just ask Michael Cohen just ask uh you know any number of people who have wound up in in serious legal Jeopardy because of their ties to Trump I think the second piece of it though is much murkier and and darker and more conspiratorial which is this idea that that the Biden folks have already demonstrated that they are willing to weaponize the justice system to come after their political opponents and that if we lose that that if Biden wins another four years that he won't just be satisfied going after Trump he'll want to go after anybody who worked for Trump to who helped Trump to get elected and and that the Deep state is going to sort of come for us next I think the combination of those two sentiments Katie is a is a pretty pretty potent mix and there are number of people working for Trump who who who are talking in those sorts of terms it sounds a little hyperbolic and paranoid to me at least the latter concern that Joe Biden is going to enact revenge on anyone who associated with Donald Trump uh did that seem slightly far-fetched to you yeah it did and and I think also you Is Joe Biden a sinister creature almost you almost roll your eyes a little bit thinking well hold on a second I is Joe Biden this sort of sinister omniscient creature who's able to uh wield the power of the American government against whoever he wants whenever he wants wherever he wants at all times uh or is he the feeble old man who can't put a sentence together it's it's a bit of a it's a bit of a conflict a bit of a contradiction there uh I I think there is paranoia in Trump World and although I would hesitate Katie because paranoia to me suggests that there's no reason for it and again if you look at the the the long line of people who have worked for Donald Trump who have wound up either in jail or on trial I don't think it's paranoid about Trump I think the Biden aspect of yes of weaponizing the justice department and coming after them seems a bit far-fetched to me but I no exact I think The fog of war that's right but I can see how one almost feeds into the other right I I I think especially in the fog of War so to speak for a lot of these guys on the campaign this is I mean they work 18h hour days and their phones are always beeping and and every minute you know their boss is in the middle of some new controversy and I think that in those conditions as I've watched people over the years in other campaigns but especially in a presidential campaign there is a bit of a like a manic condition that can set in and you know the fact that Trump is in in the middle of all of this criminal uh trouble I think it only feeds that that that those reasonable concerns sort of then start to bleed into these very unreasonable paranoid thoughts that some of these other folks have I have to ask you about another moment during your time with in Trump World where Chris levita joked to you that perhaps Donald Trump would quote change the Constitution so he could run again and you describe almost a really bizarre uh situation where he's like howling and doubled over and laughing and carrying on and then he says I'm being sarcastic of course but was that Chris Lehanes concerns disturbing I don't know if I would say it was disturbing it was very strange and you know I write a little bit in the piece about how lasita is a guy who's so intense and is such a sort of I used the word manic a minute ago but it's a pretty good descriptor for him he's kind of a manic type how he often will resort to some sort of very dark often very vulgar humor to kind of like blow off steam and so it didn't feel menacing or anything it didn't it just it felt very awkward it felt very odd because as I write especially towards the end of the piece I I know that Chris in his heart of hearts and in his past life has had some very deep reservations about Donald Trump and about the sort of authoritarian impulses that he has seen from him in the past and so in a moment like that Katie you're almost wondering if the laughter at the risk of psychoanalyzing someone here you you do wonder if the laughter is sort of meant to mask something that's that's kind of deeper under the surface and I my sense from having spent a lot of time talking with Chris is that maybe it is because I do think that he has concerns not just about you know will he stay another four years but about what it might mean to elect someone who does in fact pose a real threat to our institutions of self-government I mean I think that that's something that Chris levita does wrestle with I think it's something that other people on the campaign wrestle with I just wonder how they can sleep at night or look at themselves in the mirror if they do in fact these reservations I guess they're getting paid a boatload of money Tim well yeah you know certainly they're Incentives getting paid they're but I think that there's there there's um there's a set of incentives particularly when it comes to presidential elections Katie you know this I mean these people who elect presidents they gain this Savant status that that follows them for the rest of their lives I mean you know kellyanne Conway was basically a nobody back in 2016 she was kind she did sort of uh almost cottage industry Niche polling on women's issues nobody Kelly and Conway was not like a heavy hitter really in Republican politics and now she's got you know a seven figure book deal and she gives speeches around the world and she's a contributor on cable news I mean you know there's a real incentive for these people to take a job like this I also wouldn't discount Katie that even for some of these people and I know I I flicked at this earlier but just to reinforce the point that some of these people even if they're really alarmed by their boss in Donald Trump they're also genuinely really alarmed at what they see as sort of an extreme militant left that is that is uh sort of encroaching upon the Democratic party on everything from Israel Palestine to gender identity to Illegal immigration they look at that and they think well this is a threat to America this is a threat to our institutions so you know it's it's a difficult equivalency to sort of draw and I'm not sure how they Square the circle on any given day but I do I do think that it's not just raw opportunism in all cases I do think that some of these people do have sort of deeply held ideological beliefs and it's less about being prot Trump in many cases as it is about being sort of anti-progressive or anti-democratic who are they most concerned about when it comes to someone who might in fact replace Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee well reading between the lines on some of this because the timing of my Who are they most concerned about uh interactions with them was sort of coming to a close right as the debate was happening and then the in the immediate aftermath I think the two groups that I was mentioning earlier that they really are focused on young uh men of color uh 18 to 34 uh Urban uh often un married or if they are married you know pretty young maybe just one or two kids at home these voters are are a big Focus for the Trump campaign and then the other one are the affluent white Suburban women now I think in those two cases they look at someone who could appeal to both potentially someone like a governor West Moore of Maryland now this is someone who is just elected you know a couple less than a couple of years ago so it would be very far-fetched to see him suddenly catapult to the top of the democratic ticket but I think they recognize that Wes Moore is someone who would probably clean Donald Trump's clock right he this is someone who is very articulate very well spoken really has a wonderful life story sort of inspirational as a political figure and he would immediately eat into those two demographic pies that the Trump people are so concerned with I think even to a lesser extent someone like a Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan the governor who is I think both sort of able to speak the progressive language but is also kind of a you know bornand bred Midwestern girl who likes to throw back a shot and a beer with the guys at the bar like that is the sort of that's the kind of DNA trait that the Democratic party is really lacking right now and I think that that's another sort of archetype of of a person that they would be very fearful of much more so frankly excuse me much more so frankly than a KLA Harris who again has some unique strengths relative to Biden but doesn't necessarily answer the Bell as far as what Democrats are missing what what what the Democratic party's message really needs to be able to get out of just some of the coastal enclaves where they've been so successful and start reaching back into the middle of the country having said that kamla Harris does fair better with voters of color with Latino and black voters than Joe Biden has so uh she does represent somewhat a threat into that group of people maybe not men I don't know enough about the polling but she could eat into that population as well could she not I think she Could Kamala Harris beat Trump probably could uh it's it's it's really tough because and there's been reporting just in the last 24 hours Katie that that the Biden polling team is actually beginning to now poll test head-to-head Harris versus Trump uh we don't have a ton of data to reach great conclusions uh with and so I'm careful there I think the limited data we have does suggest that she could Faire better among U non-white voters in general um I think there's also some data to suggest that those young men of color 18 to 34 that she could actually do worse than than Biden so it's it's tough um the one thing we know is that the longer this drags out inside the Democratic Party party the sort of Hamlet routine that everyone is doing right now will he won he is he going to be the nominee um it is it is a a dream for the Republican party they are they are just sitting back every day loving every minute of this infighting in the Democratic party because every elected Democrat who comes out and says that they think that Biden should step down creates another uh sort of weapon moment for the Trump people where they can say look at how many members of his own party think that he is unfit to be president right it's it's it's just I know from talking with a lot of prominent elected Democrats over the last couple of weeks that they were really hoping for a quick clean resolution here one way or the other that that either Biden would step aside quickly sorry I just knocked my microphone over that Biden would either step aside quickly uh and they would move forward or that Biden would make a real show of strength and everyone would rally around him and they would move forward around him but instead it's just been sort of splitting the difference and and it feels like it's a quagmire almost at this point for the Democratic party and if they're going to get kamla Harris onto the ticket uh they need to do it sooner rather than later before we go Tim I'm curious since you wrote a book about uh evangelicalism in the age of extremism project 2025 has gotten an awful lot of attention Donald Trump tried to distance himself from this near 10,000 page document which really tries to and the words I think of someone from the Heritage Foundation institutionalize trumpism did they talk about that and what were you able to find out about how much the Trump campaign is embracing this yeah Katie I would say two things Project 2025 it's pretty interesting the project 2025 people have done exactly what you would want to do if the goal was for Donald Trump to renounce you and smack you down and distance himself from you in other words they've run around telling anybody who will listen that they're the ones pulling the strings that they're the ones at the controls that they're the ones who are going to be charting what a second Trump Administration looks like that really he's just the empty vessel but they're the one with the plan and if that sounds familiar it's what Steve Bannon did before he promptly found himself on the outs with Donald Trump what any number of other people have done what what Chris and Susie have been so smart about is making sure with a couple of exceptions maybe my own article included that they have really stayed in the background and not stuck their head up above ground much and not given Trump anything to shoot at the project 2025 people have made a a really classic mistake in that sense and I think that the I think that the Trump campaign has had finally gotten to have enough of it and and Trump himself had finally had enough of it so that's why they've come out sort of guns blazing lately to to distance themselves but that's not the only reason some of what project 2025 is proposing is so radical and is so I think just objectively almost um uh poisonous to the body politic that the Trump people realized this could do real damage with those Suburban swing voters people who had sort of moved away from Trump after January 6 certainly and and were ready to move on but now they've you know all of that ugliness is sort of faded from their memories and they just want the economy to be really strong again and they're kind of willing to roll the dice on Trump one more time but then they start hearing about sort of this this deconstruction of the entire federal government and and about this sort of Carnage that that the Trump people have planned for a second term and they say okay never mind we I can't do any of that right there is a real political downside here and I think the Trump people have really in the last just couple of weeks decided that they can't tolerate the risk that this is presenting they're also trying to soften the Republican platform uh when it comes to things like Reproductive Rights so I think you're right I think they're concerned that the pendulum has swung too far to the right that it's going to turn off potential supporters that they can't afford to lose Tim Alberta the the article is really fascinating wonderful reporting on your part thank you so much for talking with us about what's happening inside the Trump campaign and I'm curious what kind of feedback did you get were they pleased with the article were they upset did Donald Trump not appreciate them kind of popping their heads up uh as as he doesn't really like people to do as you said earlier you know I've I've gotten a little bit of feedback uh it's been um it's been pretty tame compared to some past interactions I've had with the Trump folks uh couple people upset about certain things but uh but nothing sort of nuclear as of now uh and and to the best of my knowledge uh Trump has not read it uh Trump is not much of a long form guy the story's 10,000 words so I'm not sure I I unless somebody broke it down for him with some bullet points which is possible I'm not sure that he would have that sort of attention span but as of now I haven't heard about any direct blowback I do know that there are some other people around Trump uh who are in his ear who are not pleased at all with Chris and Susie and who may be trying to now use this against the two of them but look Katie the thing to recognize is this is a little bit like sports when you're winning Nothing Else Matters right and when you're losing that's the only thing that matters and and so I think right now because the Trump people really feel like they're winning and they have all the momentum I don't think it matters what Chris and Susie do in this moment but if things start to take a turn that's when it's going to get interesting gosh ain't politics fun boy oh boy and you thought journalism was cut through Wake Me Up When December's here thanks Tim thank you Katie